Dear John,
I was delighted to read in several of the daily newspapers around the state that inflation was now on the way down. At the same time, the President seemed delighted that his ‘Bidenomics’ was successfully working. This sounded like good news for all of us. However, the President and the media were a day late and a dollar short as the old saying goes.
The facts do not reflect what the media is reporting that inflation is now under control. While the inflation rate was dropping for a short while, it has started moving back up just as their stories were hitting the news cycle. The most recent report was at a rate of 3.2% while President Biden has predicted 1.9% for the year. However, all of that is small potatoes.
Looking at a particular month tells one little about how it is affecting you and your family or business. It is far wiser to look back over a longer period. After a relatively flat rate of inflation during the prior administration, the first two and one-half years under President Biden have proven horrible.
While the official inflation numbers show 3.2% inflation since last year, consider those numbers are built on top of a cumulative increase that is 15% higher prices since Biden came into office.
That alone far out paces wage growth! That, however, is only part of the story. The consumer price index (CPI) measures hundreds of assorted products and considers things like gasoline price, which is up 35%, as well as telephone hardware, which is down 26%. It does not take into consideration that one buys a phone every several years while buying gas every week. Gasoline and phones may be the extremes, but many grocery items as well as electricity are all rising way above that average. That issue of frequency of usage is not considered.
